Search enginee outfit Google has been showing off a $400 speaker, called Home Max, that looks like it will compete directly with Apple's recently announced HomePod. But the real question is what is the point of this technology?

The concept of having a stereo that can do the leg work of searching through your musical collection is a great idea. However both Apple, and now Google have missed the point of what such a device is supposed to do. Take Google's Home Max is a larger Google Home that features stereo speakers and more premium looks and materials. It's expected to go on sale in December in the US.

Apparently, it can tune its audio to its own space, analysing the sound coming from the speaker using its built in microphones to determine the best equalizer settings. This sounds like a complete disaster if you are an audiophile, but if you are looking at a $400 intelligent speaker you are almost certainly not an audiophile and just want something that will make your Taylor Swift albums sound better.

Google calls this Smart Sound, and it evolves over time and based on where you move the speaker, using built-in machine learning.

It has Cast functionality, as well as input via a stereo 3.5 mm jack. Home Max can output sound that's up to 20 times more powerful than the standard version of Home, Google said, and it has two 4.5-inch woofers on board with two 0.7 inch custom-built tuners. It can sit in either vertical or horizontal orientation, and it comes in 'chalk' and 'charcoal' because grey is such an underrated fashion colour.

The speaker also includes a noise isolating array that makes it work even in open rooms with background noise, and it's Assistant-enabled, so you can use it to control your music playback via voice, or manage your smart home devices, set yourself reminders, alarms, and timers.

This is one trend which I really cannot see where it is going. Sound quality on computer equipment has been universally bad, and having a giant transistor radio which talks back to you sounds more annoying than anything else. Apple's own attempt is even worse, having a small speaker and the fact that it is wired to Siri which is about as useful as having it connected to the cat.

None of these products have thought the obvious. Let's connect it to the punter's real stereo and not worry about the whole speaker thing. Give it a digital out button of some sort and then the AI can actually take control of your entertainment centre. Is it too much to ask?

Amazon's Echo smart speaker has proved a surprise hit and now Google wants to copy it.

Google's version will look like an OnHub router and is known internally known as the Chirp and it is likely to integrate with Nest.We are expecting hear a bit more at next week’s Google I/O developer conference. The conference will highlight voice control and personal assistance tech, which is what the chirp is all about.

Amazon's Echo uses Alexa voice technology to work with smart home devices including Nest, and in addition to managing your thermostat and lights, the Echo can read the news or audio books, and can play you a song, order a pizza, or get you an Uber. The Echo has sold three million units since its release in late 2014; and while it is marketed as a virtual assistant for the home, it outpaced traditional speaker system sales in 2015, gaining over 25 per cent of market share in that year.

Amazon recently released the Echo Tap, which is mobile and connects via WiFi or mobile hotspot, and the Echo Dot, which can turn a traditional speaker into an Echo device.

Every now and then Apple's reality distortion field reaches out and sucks the common sense out of another victim. The latest casualty is Behringer who makes professional audio and music equipment.

This week Behringer announced that it is launching the world's loudest and largest iPhone dock. The iNuke Boom is 4 feet tall, 8 feet wide, weighs 700 pounds, and costs $29,999. Fortunately it has only made one of these giant turkeys and will be showing it off at its booth at CES as an attention grabber.

Attention grabber is the right word. At no point did someone wonder about what they were doing. The iPhone produces a sound which soundslike crap compared to a decent stereo, so cranking up that sound to 1000 watts sounds to like a war crime to us.

Never since Steve Jobs claimed the Apple boom box, which was selling for a couple of hundred dollars, was better than his stereo at home (valued at a three figured sum) has the concept of audiophile been so cruelly mocked. Someone who is going to spend $29,999 on a sound system is going to stick a decent CD/DVD or even a disk player on it. They are not going to try and play their compressed Coldplay at 1000 watts.

Behringer is using the iNuke to promote its new Eurosound line of consumer products, which will be introduced at CES 2012. We hope to god that this going to be the only machine that it ever makes at that price for the iPhone.